PERSONA, one of the unsuccessful bidders for the GSM mobile phone licence, will lodge a complaint with the European Commission about how the licence was awarded.
The Department of Communications said the EU move would have no impact on the formal signing of the licence with Esat Digifone, which is expected to be completed within the next few days.
The Persona board said in a statement yesterday it "had agreed to submit a complaint to the EU Commission in connection with the awarding of the second GSM mobile telephone licence". A spokesman for Persona, which comprises Motorola, Unisource, Sigma Wireless and ESB International, said that, due to legal advice, it could make no further comment on the EU complaint.
The Minister for Communications, Mr Lowry, said he was "confident that any review will conclude that the process has been conducted in a professional, fair and objective fashion".
The Department had already provided relevant information to the European Commission regarding the competition for the licence and would fully co operate with any investigation," Mr Lowry added.
Senior officials from Mr Lowry's Department have also's defended the selection process, which resulted in Esat Digifone, winning the licence, as "squeaky clean".
The European investigation into the complaint is expected to be carried out by the office of the Internal Market Commissioner, Mr Mario Monti. The Commission is likely to ask the Department for details on a wide ranged of issues such as the exact procedures followed during the competition and the way in which the selection criteria were applied.
The Persona board convened specially at the ESB International offices on St Stephen's Green in Dublin yesterday, and issued its statement shortly afterwards.
Each shareholder has two nominees on the board of eight but it was not clear last night whether the representatives from ESB International had voted in favour of taking the complaint. The Persona spokesman declined to comment when asked if the decision was unanimous.
Sources have suggested the ESB may be lukewarm about the move, which effectively means the company is bringing a European complaint against, its only shareholder - the Government.
